Sotol

Entries

1. Entry 1

   Common sotol, Dasylirion wheeleri, grows on rocky, well-drained slopes from western Texas and New Mexico into Arizona and northern Mexico. Its tall flowering stalk can rise several meters above the dense rosette.

2. Entry 2

   People of the Southwest and northern Mexico roasted sotol crowns in earth or stone-lined pits for food. The tough leaves were also worked into baskets, mats, rope, thatch and other durable fiber goods.

3. Entry 3

   The distilled spirit called sotol is made from fermented Dasylirion cores. Distillation came much later than the plant's food use; Indigenous communities had already roasted the carbohydrate-rich crowns for generations.

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